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Dear Natalie: Week 3

Your newest accomplishment this week: eye contact! It’s a bit inconsistent and sometimes you’re actually just staring at the light behind our heads (good Lord are you fascinated by lights!), but when we can catch your eye, it’s magical. Your eyes have stopped randomly crossing at random times and you’re starting to be able to track objects that we hold up in front of you. It makes your weekly photo shoots much more fun!

Your grandmother Hall came to visit last week to help out around the house when your dad went back to work. He’s working a part time schedule for now, which means I get to ease into spending the whole week with you by myself. I love you to pieces, baby girl, but the thought is rather daunting. I know for sure that we’ll figure it out, though, and I think it will get easier as you get older and slightly less floppy.

We didn’t realize until yesterday that apparently your name has been incorrect since you were born. We went to the Cambridge City Clerk’s office yesterday to sign your birth certificate and get a copy, and only realized after we signed it that the paperwork sent from the birth center spelled your first name “Nathalie.” Your middle name was missing entirely, but at least we saw that before anything was signed. Now we need to wait for the birth center to send a letter of correction so we can get it fixed. So for now you are “Nathalie,” even though that’s never what we intended. I blame sleep deprivation for us not catching the mistake in the first place.

Speaking of sleep, yours seems to be improving a bit. Your first stretch after we swaddle you and put you in the co-sleeper is consistently three hours – woohoo! After that it’s really anyone’s guess, especially after 4 or 5am. Some nights you decide that that’s the perfect time to party, and some nights you calm down as soon as you’re back in your swaddle and you sleep for another few hours.

You continue to gain weight like a boss. At your 2 week checkup, you cleared 10 lbs – 10 lbs, 5 oz, to be exact. I’m so proud of all of us for figuring out this whole nursing thing, since clearly we’re all doing a good job. Keep up the good work, baby girl!